


Mind Teaser

by templefugate



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Domestic, Drabble, M/M, One Shot, Riddles, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 06:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7746799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templefugate/pseuds/templefugate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a simple question on the surface, but Jonathan Crane knows nothing with Edward Nygma is as it first seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mind Teaser

"The more you have of me, the less you own."

Jonathan froze, spoon held halfway towards his lips, before slowly looking up from his breakfast.

Edward stood casually by the counter of their shared kitchen. He was decked all out, his lime green suit a splash of color in between room's various drab shades of grey and brown. The only off thing about him was his head-his usual green bowler hat was absent and his hair looked as though it hasn't been combed in weeks.

"Good morning to you as well," Jonathan coolly replied before continuing with his cereal. Absently, his eyes locked on his wrist watch before turning towards the window. Earlier twilight had been chased off by the steadily rising sun, which filled the room with a dim light.

"You didn't answer my question." Edward opened the cabinet and peered over the handful of clean dishes inside.

"What has you up so early?"

Edward turned and locked eyes with him for a moment. His lips momentarily parted before quickly shutting again. Perhaps Edward was sick with some bug-waking up earlier than his regular noon was one thing, but silence was downright uncharacteristic.

"Well," Jonathan said, "you didn't answer mine either."

Edward closed the cabinet with a thud, making the dishes inside rattle and clink as though there was an earthquake. He paced over to the fridge and opened it before leaning inside.

Perhaps he should have known better than to expect a man covered in question marks to give him an answer, let alone a straight one. Jonathan returned his attention back to his cereal.

A silence settled between the two momentarily before Edward began to dig around, searching the fridge with the fury of a man half starved.

"Break anything and you get to tell me which dose of my toxin has better effects."

Edward grunted and continued searching. Finally, he pulled out a milk carton and shut the door. Leaning against it, he uncapped it and took a long swig.

"Should I assume that you're going to finish that?"

Edward paused, bits of milk dribbling down his chin. "What, do you want some?"

Jonathan scoffed? "After what you did? That would hardly be sanitary."

Edward grabbed a paper towel with his free hand. "Oh, as if you haven't had my spit on your lips before." He smirked before chugging down more of his daily dose of calcium. When he stopped, he locked eyes with Jonathan once more. "I get it now."

Jonathan took a sip from his lukewarm cup of coffee. His lips remained pressed in a firm line, eyes still and even. To so much as even slightly raise an eyebrow would be to give the other man a sliver of satisfaction.

"You can admit it, you know." He rubbed his chin. "Just admit that you don't know the answer."

Jonathan gritted his teeth and held back a sigh. If it were any other wannabe genius up at this hour, then they would have surely announced some breathtaking new theorem. Maybe the fact that Edward hadn't come racing naked straight from his bed shrieking "Eureka!" should have tipped him off.

Jonathan paused, musing over the earlier question as he slowly chewed on slightly soggy Cheerios. At least this conundrum was new.

"Stuck on it?" Edward's earlier smirk returned even wider than before.

"A man should be allowed to listen to his own thoughts free from other's invading commentary."

Edward chuckled. "A man also should know when to admit he's at a loss."

Oh, as if. Jonathan clutched his spoon tighter in his hand but made no other response. Edward certainly wasn't the type to just hand out answers.

Jonathan sighed. "Oh fine, if you must keep on insisting. I didn't know that there was a time limit."

Edward placed the forgotten milk carton on the counter before putting his hands in his pocket. Momentarily, he looked over Jonathan the way that a doctor looked over a healthy patient faking an ailment, half amused with the slightest hint of concern. He began to dig around in his left pocket before pulling out his summer grass green wallet.

"Would a Lincoln be enough to shake the cobwebs out of your head?"

Jonathan looked back to the table, eating his breakfast ever faster. There was only so much time in the day and his partner had wasted enough of it.

"How about a Jackson?"

Had Edward been up at his normal hour then he could have pestered Selina or Jervis. At this hour most everyone in Gotham was probably still in bed.

What perfect timing. Jonathan stood and pushed in his chair before silently walking over to the sink.

"Well?"

"Well, I'd say I better start getting to work."

-

Persistence was a positive trait only in certain men-in Edward Nygma, it only served to further sour him.

Jonathan placed his head in his hands, his work forgotten. Any threats of forcing fear gas on the other man had long since stopped working. If anything, he wouldn't have been surprised if Edward pranced into his lab and raised his sleeve.

Didn't he have something better to do? Considering the number of blueprints and messily scrawled notes that littered their shared hideout, Jonathan surely would have thought so.

"What's wrong?" Edward asked.

Jonathan didn't reply. Edward wasn't much for rhetorical questions, but even he knew the answer to that before it left his lips.

"If you're going to be down here," Jonathan said, rubbing his forehead, "then you could at least have the decency to make yourself useful. Hand me the nigerine over there."

Edward merely leaned further in his chair.

"Would you, please?" His voice was about as sweet as a lemon.

"I'm the one who asks questions here."

Jonathan bit his lip, looking back down to the discarded needles and papers on his desk. Picking up a pen, he began to absently write data down. Chemical information, dosage sizes, information from past tests. Half of the information was regurgitated and the other half was newly synthesized. None the less, it proved he was doing something. Some time during it, a bored Nygma stood up and proceeded to silently leave.

It was only when the steady stream of writing stopped that the question rooted itself in his head once more. His pen hung above the paper yet never quite reached it, his hand shaking.

"Oh, damn you," Jonathan said before pushing his chair out and rushing upstairs.

Edward was actually doing something for once that day, a pile of papers spilled out before him near the entrance to his storage room. His eyes widened when he saw Jonathan.

"Is something the matter?"

"A debt," Jonathan responded. "There's your answer."

Like most of Nygma's questions, it was too obvious in retrospect. Even if he did give the answer, Edward would surely find a way to make it haunt him again in the future. But right then there was only the now, that illustrious time forever receding into the ever expanding past. Right then, Jonathan reached forward and grabbed it with an iron grip.

Edward's toothy smile vanished and his lips parted, only to be silenced.

"And you could at least have the decency to pay off your earlier bet."

For a moment, Edward was completely still. Then that moment passed and he quickly regained himself, his eyes meeting Jonathan's own.

"You did get the correct answer, yet-"

Jonathan's glare tightened. "Yet what?"

Edward merely groaned before reaching into his pocket and pulling his wallet out again.

"Oh, don't look so sad-surely you owe Penguin more."

Edward's face tightened, and he shoved the crumpled twenty into Jonathan's hands.

"So it finally hit you, huh? Just when did the gears finally click together and start moving?" His tone was colder than before but his smirk returned all the same.

Jonathan didn't reply. Instead, he pocketed his winnings and turned, taking long, quick strides as he headed back towards the stairwell. At least Edward now had something of his own to mull over.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything with this pairing for a while (that I've felt was good enough to publish, at least). Then this little plot bunny came along, as did the urge to write to see the idea finally come to fruition.
> 
> I have to admit, I'm a sucker for OTP fics where the characters are domestic, but I can't imagine these two acting that way in canon without simultaneously annoying the heck out of each other.


End file.
